Smoothiemania is Running Wild!

Based on all my cupcake posts, it would seem that they are the biggest part of my diet. Nothing is further from the truth. I am all about 80/20 - eat right 80% of the time and the 20% that's not so healthy will take care of itself. Everything fits into a healthy diet and I never feel deprived.
Smoothies are my breakfast go to. Set 'em up the night before, put the blender cup in the fridge and then let 'er rip in the AM. A great way to start the day with nutrition packed goodness - it keeps me healthier and smarter in the face of managing the prep, delivery and cleanup of 1200 meals a day at work. They help me maintain my 65 pound weight loss and fuel me to train for my first ever mud run this June.
Best part is...they're never the same way twice cause my base recipe can be made with whatever's on hand.
Here's the deal:
1/2 cup liquid (water, skim milk, almond milk, soy milk, etc)
1 medrool date ( to sweeten it up)
1 tsp ground guarana seed (so I don't need a separate cup of coffee to get going)
1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder (whey, soy, brown rice, pea, etc)
1/2 piece of fruit (apple, pear, banana, orange, etc) or 1 cup berries (blueberries, quartered strawberries, raspberries, etc)
1/2 cup solid vegetable (celery, cucumber, carrot)
3 cups leafy greens (collards, chard, spinach, arugula, beet tops, carrot tops, radish leaves, parsley - go easy on the tops because the flavor is strong, mix them with the milder greens)
Handful of ice (only in the summer for me - too cold in the winter!)
And it's adjustable - just have leafy greens on hand - omit the solid veggie and replace with another cup of greens. Easy peasy.
A pretty powerful blender is needed to tame this beast. Here in casa de Krohne we use a Blendtec.
Try it- you'll like it and you're bod will look and feel great.
-DK

Big People Cupcake Party

I love cupcakes - fast to cook, cool & decorate. Easier to handle during decorating than a cake - can darn near juggle them without harm. Try tossing around a 12" layer that way and all you'll end up with is tasty crumbs. Of course, then you can make cake pops but that's another post altogether.
Overall I eat a crazy healthy diet but sometime I gotta indulge both creatively and sweets wise.

As a mom and brownie troop leader, I also need to talk to people taller than 3 1/2 feet tall sometimes. To satisfy all these needs (cause it is ALL about me!), I threw a Big Person Cupcake Party last weekend.




Nothing complicated, just a few friends and Wilton's Black Eyed Coffee House Cupcakes served in demitasse mugs because anything worth doing is worth overdoing. The baking cups fit perfectly in the demitasse mugs - foodie heaven.

The frosting recipe is very one note. To punch it up add:
-a pinch of salt (I used pink Himalayan)
-a little vanilla (I used ground Tahitian vanilla bean)
-about a tablespoon of molasses

Oh, and...do yourself a favor and double the filling recipe - you'll need it.

I started decorating with the Wilton tip #22 but I would have had a lot of frosting left over and it seemed like a shrimpy amount on top of the cupcakes.



Digging through my decorating kit for better options, I first thought of using the 1M but I use it sooooo much for cupcakes. Then I saw the 1F and almost dismissed it cause it's a monster. Then the phrase Go Big or Go Home came to mind and I went for it. Love the way it turned out. A little grated chocolate and a royal icing flower later and viola!




Coffee, cupcakes and friends...best recipe ever.
-DK

Easter Cupcakes 2.0

I love cupcakes.  ALOT.  Probably more than what's healthy.

Playing with cake and icing flavor combinations. Planning how to decorate them...daydream material. Putting them on a pretty stand...so girly and fun. 

Who's to know those sweet royal icing flowers were piped while watching Descent 2 on Fearnet while cursing a blue streak at my inability to get the daisies just right. Good times.

These little beauties made quite a hit at last year's Easter get together. So much so that I was requested to make a similar setup as centerpieces for a bridal shower. Niiiice.

Made the royal icing flowers at least a day ahead to give them time to dry. I used the recipe from Pretty Party Cakes by Peggy Porschen. I'm not posting the recipe because I don't believe in sharing recipes unless the author posted them online themselves. Buy the book - it's worth the price just for the pictures. (But honey, I swear I read it for the recipes!)

The cupcake recipe is from the Neelys on Food Network's website. Only I didn't make PB&J cupcakes like in the original but used the base cupcake recipe with my own flavor twist. It's a moist yellow cake with a little something special due to the Creme Bouquet. 

Ingredients
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 cup sour cream
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 large egg yolk, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I decreased vanilla to 1/2 t and added 1.5 t of Creme Bouquet)
Directions

Put an oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Line a standard 12 cup muffin tin with cupcake liners.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the butter and sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Add the sour cream to the butter and sugar mixture and continue to beat until incorporated. Add the eggs and yolk, 1 at a time, beating until thoroughly mixed into the batter. Add in the vanilla and continue to mix. Slowly add the dry ingredients, in increments, and mix until combined.

Scoop the batter into the cupcake liners to fill 3/4 of the way. Put in the oven and bake until the cupcakes are a pale gold color and a cake tester comes out clean, about for 18 to 20 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and let cool in the tins for 5 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting and filling.

And since every great cupcake needs frosting, I used my very favorite Swiss Meringue recipe from Cake Central's website.If you decide to make it, make your life easy and use pasteurized 100% liquid egg whites. They meringue up beautifully and if you don't have to worry about food borne illness if your thermometer isn't calibrated correctly. People who don't like frosting will like this frosting. It is not "too sweet" and is HIGHLY addictive. But do not, DO NOT!!!!!!!! add the butter in step 4 of the recipe until the meringue is room temperature. I cannot emphasize that enough. If the butter melts, you will have tasty, unsalvageable soup. (Yeah, I messed one up once the night before a delivery and had to run to the store for more ingredients and start ALL over at 9:00PM so I would have the cake ready on time the next day. Hoo!)

Ingredients

12 oz (3 sticks) unsalted butter at room temp5 egg whites
8 oz (1 cup) granulated sugar
2 TBSP real vanilla extract

Instructions
Place the egg whites and the sugar in a bowl or top of a double boiler and place it over a pot of simmering water, whisking until it registers 160 degrees. (Whisking keeps the white from turning into scrambled eggs)

Pour into the bowl of a stand mixer and whip it with the whisk on medium high until it is reaches the stiff peak stage.While the meringue is beating, cut up the butter into tbsp sized pieces.When meringue is ready, switch to the paddle attachment, turn on low, and slowly add the butter. (One tablespoon at a time, waiting until each piece of butter is incorporated before adding the next piece)

Add vanilla.

Turn on medium high and let it rip until you have a lovely silky buttercream. You will hear a slapping sound when it's ready. (It may look curdled before it smooths out. DON"T PANIC! Just let it mix and it'll all work out.)

Frost the cupcakes with a large, plain round tip, place the flowers and sprinkle strategically with pastel dragees for some shine. Serve them at room temp, this type of frosting is not nearly as amazing when it's cold.

-DK

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

Yes, I am one of those moms. The ones that send in cupcakes or cakepops for holidays and birthdays that end up mentioned on Cake Central. But chances are, if you're reading this blog, you are too.

It started out innocently enough. Reynolds was advertising their new stay bright cupcake liners in the baking aisle at the supermarket and I picked them up. The pattern would be cute for Valentine's Day.

Since I already had the wrappers, I agreed to bake cupcakes for my daughter's class Valentine's Day party. And made 2 dozen cupcakes using Hershey's Perfectly Chocolatey Cake Recipe . To really pump up the chocolate flavor, I used a cup of boiling coffee instead of plain water. The coffee flavor doesn't come through in the actual cake - it doesn't taste like mocha or anything. Coffee just really enhances the chocolate, making it deep, dark and delicious.

Now I couldn't put a nice big swirl of frosting on top of the cupcakes because my cupcake carrier will just squish it down:

So I had to come up with a flatish decoration. I had some Duff fondant in hot pink and black left from another project. And some gold dragees were hanging around as well. Had a bunch of heart cookie cutters in different sizes in my decorating kit too and viola:

But the edges looked a little unfinished and Valentine's Day should be, I don't know, a little more romantic. And these cupcakes looked very modern. So I used pink frosting and an Ateco 104 tip to make little feathered boas to cover the edges of the fondant:

All this, for 6 year olds! But, fellow foodies, I'm sure you understand the obsession. And, after all - isn't Valentine's Day all about going overboard for the ones we love?

Ewww to Ohhh!

My daughter is a picky eater who has a very limited repertoire and I figured the few things she eats should be as healthy as possible. So I bought some whole wheat graham crackers to use for my daughter's school snacks. What could possibly go wrong?

EVERYTHING! They are gross. She didn't like them and neither do I. When companies make things like this, I wonder if anyone actually eats them before they build factories and churn out thousands of boxes. Whole wheat is not unpleasant - unseasoned whole wheat grahams are. There should be a sweetener and maybe a pinch of salt, right? No - it's just...plain, dry wheat and now there's a whole $5 box of them sitting in the pantry.

BUT chocolate makes everything better. So do marshmallows. And together they could bring about world peace.

I set the graham crackers on a piece of parchment paper (wax paper works too) on top of a small cutting board. Then microwave melted some semi sweet chips and a very little shortening together in a glass coffee mug. Using a spoon, I drizzled chocolate across the graham crackers.

The mini marshmallows were a little too big so I cut them in half before pressing them into the wet chocolate drizzles. They looked a little nakedly white so I drizzled more chocolate across the marshmallows and used the cutting board to carry them to the fridge. After they set up in the fridge for about 15 minutes, the end result looked like this:

They tasted great now! And since I had chocolate left over, and some strawberries were in the fridge, the inevitable happened.

My daughter's teacher had sent home a note earlier in the week to remind us to send in a snack every day. I had tucked a yogurt tube into her lunchbag but it was clearly a forgettable snack. The above pic is what went into school yesterday. Little miss told me the whole class including her teacher, were looking at her like they "wanted some" as she enjoyed her snack. Guess I won't be getting any notes for a while!

-DK

Vegan Hot Dogs

This August marks a year since the passing of my Uncle Frank. More than just an uncle, he was my friend. He, I and a bunch of our friends all went to horror conventions and watched cheesy movies together regularly. And we all love good food - Uncle Frank (Hunckle Frank to his friends) really enjoyed chili cheese dogs with diced onions.

To honor his memory, this August we held the First Annual Frank Miller Memorial Weenie Roast. Hunckle Frank's daughter is vegetarian and is one of those folks who don't expect anyone to make anything special for her.

But I love my cousin and, darn it, why can't a vegetarian have a decent veggie dog? I wasn't about to serve tofu pups - bleh! and I remembered a yummy recipe for sweet potato quinoa kale cakes from Fooduciary.

The recipe made a savory and satisfying mix of yummy veggie love that would have been easy enough to make into a patty but I needed something to go on a hot dog bun. A pastry bag with a generous amount cut off the bottom let me pipe the right shape onto a parchment lined pan.



They baked up very nicely but turning them had to be done carefully with a spatula. They looked great when done:



...and held up well in the fridge overnight. The veggie dogs were tender and to make sure they didn't fall apart on the grill they were put in a grill basket made for small foods.

Since the carnivores had chili to top their digs, the vegheads got a nice little number made from chopped tomato, onion and avocado. I'm a complete omnivore and I felt the meat and nonmeat dogs were dead tied for taste.

We all had a great time and it was a fitting tribute to my wonderful Hunkle Frank.

-DK

Christmas for Foodies

Recently I had the very good fortune to attend my niece's wedding. It was doubly wonderful because, in addition to seeing my gorgeous black belt niece tie the knot, the reception was a gastronomic paradise! See, the bride's daddy is a foodie's foodie and had the reception at Addison Park.




The entrance was spectacular! My husband and daughter are in the pic to give an aspect of size to that stairway. (and they both look great all dressed up for the wedding!)
The dinner was very good but it was the cocktail hour that made me think I died and went to heaven. Yummy, yummy heaven....a HUGE four sided cold display dominated the center of the room while hot appetizer stations flanked the walls.
Some pics of the colds:




Prosciutto...salami....capiccola....the stuff savory, salty dream are made of..




Garbanzo salad and cheese galore!




Feta and olives and pita oh my!




Grilled carrots, marinated veggies, pasta salads and multiple types of mouth watering focaccia demanding my attention. It was like trying to choose a favorite child.
As I succumbed to the food fest, less pics were taken as my hands were busy cramming food into my mouth hole. The hot food stations had EVERYthing! I came up for air once or twice and got these:




Chicken or beef sliders with soft rolls and onions for toppings...mmmmm




Oysters Rockefeller, mussels marinara and fried calamari...squee!




I don't drink but still was impressed with the booze luge.
Rule is don't eat anything bigger than your head which I obviously broke with these honkin plates of grub:












And the perfect ending...my neice's favorite - cannoli cake!




I love food...I mean weddings!
-DK